Nicholas Jeanes, co-founder of design studio And Objects, points to its Otterbourne Slipper Chair, which is dressed in a geometric Christopher Farr Cloth Fresco fabric. “Fabric choice and colour instantly changes the look and feel of a traditional upholstered chair,” he says of the eye-catching design. Designer Rachel Donath agrees, and recently added fringing to her velvet Allard Ottoman – for a modern twist.
Nicola Harding Curtain Call sofa in Laidback Linen Moss, £4,445
Rachel Donath velvet Allard Ottoman in Jewel Merlot, £610
And Objects Otterbourne Slipper chair in Christopher Farr Cloth fabric, £5,500
But why have skirting at all? “Not only does it eliminate the dead space underneath your furniture,” says Jeanes, “an upholstered skirt provides flow and softens the transition from the main body of the furniture to the floor.” Longer and looser fabric creates even more fluidity – see the lengthy skirt on Trove by Studio Duggan’s Skirted Seven chair that flares out in a voluminous fashion, or Alice Palmer & Co’s pendant wrapped in linen that hangs down in diaphanous folds. Nicola Harding includes a floor-grazing ruffle around the base of her Curtain Call sofa as a decorative detail that finishes the piece beautifully.
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Alice Palmer Lotus Linen Loose Box Pleat lampshade, £160
But skirts don’t have to be flouncy. Pierre Augustin Rose’s white Froufrou ottoman features neat, flat pleats lending simple elegance, while Ceraudo completes its footstools with a cute frilly flourish available in checks, dots, stripes and a diamond pattern. Co-founder Victoria Ceraudo has always loved skirting. “It breaks up the overall form of the furniture,” she concludes, “and creates a warm and inviting interior to cosy down in.”
Deutsche Bank says it was inspired to run the numbers by the European Union’s Competitiveness report released a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the relevant bit of Mario Draghi’s foreward:
First – and most importantly – Europe must profoundly refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the US and China, especially in advanced technologies. Europe is stuck in a static industrial structure with few new companies rising up to disrupt existing industries or develop new growth engines.
In fact, there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over EUR 100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six US companies with a valuation above EUR 1 trillion have been created in this period.
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This lack of dynamism is self-fulfilling.
Note the careful phrasing. “Set up from scratch” excludes the likes of AstraZeneca (founded 1999 by the merger of Astra and Zeneca).
Nevertheless, Draghi’s wrong and so is Deutsche Bank. Here’s a different chart:
It shows all the constituents of Bloomberg World Large and Mid-Cap Index organised (where available) by date of incorporation. Countries and territories are all clickable.
Obviously, incorporation dates are even weaker than Deutsche’s finger-in-the-air approach when trying to estimate when companies were founded. Lots of things happened to make Saudi Aramco, for example, before its commercial registration was filed in 2018. Shell, clearly, wasn’t created in 2002.
Still, incorporation dates are enough to run a quick fact-check. Here’s the dot that matters:
PDD Holdings, the US-listed owner of the Temu and Pinduoduo e-retail platforms, moved its corporate registration from China to Ireland in May 2023. It was founded nine years ago and on current standings has a market cap equivalent to €140bn, so fits both of Draghi’s criteria.
All hail PDD, the future of European Union innovation.
FALL-lovers are raving about a $1.25 craft piece from Dollar Tree.
Shoppers have dubbed the store’s carvable pumpkins as “perfect size” for getting your craft on this Halloween.
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Crafty shoppers are racing to Dollar Tree for carvable foam pumpkinsCredit: Getty
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The $1.25 buy is a dupe for a $19.99 Michaels decorationCredit: Dollar Tree
The foam ornaments, which are four inches tall and five and a half inches wide, can be turned into vases, candy buckets or used as part of your spooky display.
They’re also a smaller dupe for the Michaels’ Orange Craft Pumpkins by Ashland.
But while the Michaels version will set you back $19.99, Dollar Tree’s Carvable Foam Pumpkins are 88% cheaper at $1.25.
The inexpensive design has received rave reviews from crafty Americans.
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One self-confessed fall lover said: “I’ve used these for the last couple of years for DIY and fall home decor.
“They’re so much fun to paint and decorate your own way.
“They’re very affordable and easy to use.”
Another quipped: “These pumpkins can be carved and used to make different types of pumpkins.
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“Such as painted, or covered with fabric or yarn.
“They are easy to work with.”
A third beamed: “There’s so much you can do with these.
“All you need is some paint, felt, craft wood, yarn, an X-acto knife and glue.
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“If you can imagine it, you can make it!”
The Michaels pumpkins have similarly good reviews, but for the price of one, you can pick up 15 in Dollar Tree.
Halloween dupes
There are several Halloween dupes to help you celebrate on a budget.
Dollar Tree has $3 haunted plants that are 90% cheaper than the ones at Michael’s.
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The discount store also has hanging pats for just $1.25, while a major competitor sells them for $15.
Pottery Barn fans found a dupe for the store’s famous floating ghosts that are 61% cheaper.
Shoppers even found a dupe for Disney’s famous character pumpkins at Kohl’s.
A blurb on the pricier crafts reads: “Brighten up your Halloween decor with this craft pumpkin.
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“You can decorate this accent with sparkly embellishments, paint with any multi-surface paint or carve it with a hot knife tool.
“Display it among LED pillar candles on your mantel.”
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The album that electronic producer Sophie Xeon was working on as a follow-up to her acclaimed debut will never be heard, at least not in the state intended by its maker. The UK musician, who recorded as SOPHIE, died in 2021 aged 34 after falling accidentally from an Athens building. The album now appearing as Sophie is a posthumous assembly of tracks from the unfinished work in progress.
In certain respects, its timing is opportune. Hailed as a visionary while alive, the producer’s repute has grown since her death. Sophie was associated with hyperpop, the sub-genre spearheaded by London record label PC Music more than a decade ago. This archly affectionate, highly conceptualised, extremely online take on chart pop and dance music has filtered into the mainstream. Charli XCX, she of the “brat summer”, is the most prominent example. “You had a power like a lightning strike,” she sings in Sophie’s memory on this year’s breakthrough Brat album.
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The producer was a mysterious figure at the start of her career, little more than a name, or even a rumour. She became more visible on her debut studio album, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, released in 2018 after her announcement that she was transgender. Her electronically processed voice had a starring role in its songs, which were composed from a startling collision of abrasiveness, experimentalism, kitsch and catchiness. Themes of artificiality and realness, technology and feeling, gave the music a posthuman character. (Sophie’s desire to move into a new form of being apparently extended to rejecting all third-person pronouns, gendered or otherwise.)
The album Sophie tries to give posthumous life to her posthuman soundworld. Its tracks have been completed by her studio-manager brother Benny Long, her closest collaborator. Lasting over an hour and featuring many guest vocalists, it comes across as a labour of love. But the results are patchy.
With her voice absent from the songs, the figure of Sophie retreats back into the shadows. DJ Nina Kraviz drones about “unpredictable reality” over clichéd cosmic swooshes in “The Dome’s Protection”. Multidisciplinary artist Juliana Huxtable repeats “Plunging Asymptote”’s esoteric title over stop-start electronic outbursts as though stuck on autorepeat. Matters pick up with a move into club music with “Do You Wanna Be Alive” and “Elegance”, which have sharp beat switch-ups and sound design. But the album lacks the coherence and purposefulness of Sophie’s previous work. It pays tribute to a sadly extinguished talent.
★★☆☆☆
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‘Sophie’ is released by Transgressive/Future Classic
Numerous firms would benefit from assistance to better understand the characteristics of vulnerability and identify vulnerable customers.
This is according to research from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), in partnership with FWD Research.
The CII undertook a survey of its members in July 2024 of those directly involved in Board reporting about the challenges they had encountered in producing the first Consumer Duty reports.
Off the back of this research and a roundtable discussion, the CII has published a white paper “that seeks to support firms’ compliance with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) reporting requirements under the Consumer Duty legislation.”
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Roundtable attendees also said they would welcome advice on storing and sharing information on vulnerable customers.
Most firms said they would “welcome more guidance” from the regulator on how they should meet the reporting requirements.
Other firms added however, the time being invested in the reporting process helped to shape internal conversations that had already driven positive changes for their customers.
Following this research, the CII has recommended that firms should:
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Ensure that data and reporting requirements are used not only to satisfy reporting requirements, but are baked into product, service and process improvement cycles
Work with professional bodies to develop research best practice
Identify whether they have a robust understanding of vulnerability for their customer base
Place more emphasis on joining the data dots around individual customers or customer groups in real time
And that leadership teams in firms should take active interest in reviewing customer needs
CII Group chief executive Matthew Hill said: “The Chartered Insurance Institute sought experiences of writing these initial reports to understand any challenges that might have been encountered, and to make recommendations that might assist other firms in future.
“We are sharing our findings and recommendations with the FCA and the wider sector through this white paper, and we will continue to explore with the regulator and our members what more we can do to assist firms in meeting the standards of care expected from the introduction of the Consumer Duty.”
FWD research director Martin Grimwood added: “It’s clear that many firms have yet to understand vulnerability amongst their customers.
“Without a top-down view, which quantifies how prevalent different types of vulnerability is within a customer base, it is difficult for firms to create informed strategic plans that will meet the needs of vulnerable customers.
“We are delighted the CII have chosen to endorse our approach to understanding vulnerability and look forward to helping CII members implement this key requirement of Consumer Duty and vulnerability guidance.”
I talk to a lot of leaders, in a bid to stay “ahead of the curve” and hear what’s on their minds. These meetings are not just about good ideas and premium biscuits 🍪. I also enjoy the unexpected ways that life comes full circle.
In 2022, I went with my Most Successful Friend (as her “plus one”) to a new event: Anthropy at the Eden Project in Cornwall. It was an invigorating experiment: a coming-together of leaders from business, charities, government and beyond, to work on a blueprint of positive changes for Britain after Covid. Think Davos, but in a biome. And without the tiered ticketing structure/crazy egos.
I was in at the start (such a trendsetter 😎). Many more people have since got involved — if you’re interested, the next, much bigger, Anthropy conference is in March 2025. This week, I finally met its founder, John O’Brien, to talk about leadership and connection. (No biscuits, though).
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Not at the Eden Project. Yet.
Read on for the many benefits of younger people joining boards (PSA: “young” in board terms is 40 something.) And in Office Therapy we advise someone feeling left out at work. We’ve all been there 😥.
Send your stars out to shine as Neds (or become one yourself) 🙋🏽♂️
Why not encourage your talented executives to become non-executive directors (Neds) in another organisation? That’s the most original staff retention and career development idea* I’ve heard in a long while. It comes from Warren Partners’ Sally Dunwoody**, a specialist headhunter for leaders in financial services companies.
Sally told me: “If you offer someone who has an executive role the chance to be a non-exec in an organisation that does not compete with what they are doing, it is a great development opportunity for them and you will keep them. You will retain them, they will be trained in a whole range of skills that will be very useful to your business, and you won’t be paying for that training — someone else is.”💡
Even better, Sally said: “[Neds] immediately have access to, say, six other people from the board they are serving on, plus the rest of the company they are working with, plus their resources. All that brings a ton of extras to your business and access to people and places who can coach, mentor and help.”
Generally, serving executives will only have the time to take on one Ned role. What sort of person, I asked Sally, is likely to be a candidate for a Ned role? “You’d be in a broad business role — probably starting to be a functional specialist, so you are probably in finance or marketing, business development or HR. Tech in particular is good — anything to do with tech or data — or a general manager.” For the new generation of Neds, you’re probably at the stage of “ExCo or ExCo minus one”.
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The biggest barrier to executives taking on a role elsewhere might not be an unsupportive boss, but age. According to the latest (2023) Spencer Stuart Board Index, the average age of Neds in the UK is 60.9 years: “Female Neds are slightly younger on average (59.3 years) than their male counterparts (62.5).” Boards are proving surprisingly stubborn about recruiting younger people — even those with relevant experience. The very youngest Neds are likely to be in their mid-40s.
It’s something that needs to change, especially now that many companies have four or five generations in the workplace (as discussed here last week). As Sally pointed out: “You need people who are younger round the board table as they can help shift the debate away from ‘this is how we have always done it’ and also they can help ‘get the customer in the board room’. Think about a payday loan business, for example — how many of their board members have ever been in the situation of needing that service?”
There are also plenty of programmes aimed at supporting people into board positions — Warren Partners, for example, has a Board Fellowship Programme that connects FTSE 250 companies with talented people from minority backgrounds. Women on Boards offers networking and training opportunities. And, *declaring an interest*, the FT Board Director Programme offers a diploma for aspiring Neds in the UK and Asia. (Tell me any others you have taken part in, or run, and we will mention them here.)
What can you do to improve your own chances of finding a non-executive position? Thinking several years ahead will help — whether you’re thinking of doing it alongside a corporate job, or as part of a transition to a portfolio career. Becoming a school governor, or a trustee of a charity, are good first steps. Sally’s advice: “Do something that speaks to you, so you lean into it properly and give it the energy and passion it deserves.”
**I first met Sally many years ago, on a campsite in France ⛺️. We reconnected recently, creating another “full circle” moment.
This week on the Working It podcast
Burnout is a huge issue, but very ill-defined — and there’s even more confusion about how to prevent and treat it. Into this void comes the expert voice of this week’s guest on the Working It podcast, Dr Audrey Tang. Audrey is a psychologist, coach and award-winning author. We recorded our talk earlier this month, live on stage at the FT Weekend Festival.
Listen in for tips on spotting early warning signs of burnout in yourself, and in colleagues, and learn how to keep yourself afloat when you are working in a dysfunctional organisation. Lots of great audience questions, too 🏆.
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Office Therapy
The problem: I recently found out by chance that I had not been invited to a select workplace dinner. When I heard, I felt like I was in the playground and nobody wanted to play with me. It was pure humiliation and later I was furious. I’m over it but I’m curious: why was my response physical — and how best to deal with “bruises” to our status🤕?
Isabel’s advice: I decided not to answer this myself because my reaction was visceral. It took me back to that moment when I realised my daughter was the only one in the friendship group not invited to the Alpha Girl’s birthday party. It sucks 🤬.
Here’s the rather more impartial (and more impressive) Ben Tye, CEO at digital transformation consultancy Gate One, and also a psychotherapist and executive coach:
“Ouch, I feel for you. Rejection hurts, and being excluded is a powerful form of othering that can bring up feelings of shame, impotent anger and rage.
“It’s telling that you describe an intense physical reaction and feeling like you were back in the playground with no one wanting to play with you. We all carry what’s called our ‘inner child’ within us. It’s a way of describing the younger parts of ourselves that can sometimes emerge during stressful or traumatic situations. In psychological terms, it’s a form of regression when an experience can suddenly take us back to feeling very young and vulnerable.
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“Be good to yourself, acknowledge the pain of being excluded and find a way to be kind to yourself on the day of the dinner. Maybe have one of your own with friends, family and people you love, who love you in return? Finally, if you experience this regularly, you might consider working with a psychodynamic coach or a psychotherapist to work through what is happening and address whatever is there.”
*Got a workplace problem for Office Therapy? Big, small — we tackle them all. Send to isabel.berwick@ft.com. We anonymise everything.
🚨 Office Therapy will be alternating here with the extremely popular “Dear Jonathan” careers advice column by Jonathan Black. Send your career dilemmas to dear.jonathan@ft.com.
Five top stories from the world of work
Uber’s next act: taking on Amazon. Newly profitable Uber is in the business of expansion — a great case study on corporate ambition from Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu and Camilla Hodgson. Is it really going to turn into the “operating system for your everyday life”?
The office is not the only solution: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent the “return to office” debate into overdrive when he announced that he wanted workers back at their desks five days a week. Emma Jacobs asks how something as boring as the office ended up being such a hot topic.
Young women are starting to leave young men behind: Women are making strides in education and workplaces, but the more startling thing is that some young men are actively disengaged — and their prospects are going backwards. A worrying data trends piece from John Burn-Murdoch.
If you’ve ever wanted to look more “put together” in your clothing choices, or have felt you don’t really “get” fashion 🤷🏼♀️, please read “How I Lost (and Found) My Style at 67“, by Cathy Horyn in The Cut. What will make you feel instantly better is that Cathy is a fashion critic. If she has been uncertain about what to wear, what hope for the rest of us? It’s also a great example of positive ageing — embracing change and making the most of it. (Yes, this is a piece aimed at women — but there are many universal lessons.)
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This week’s giveaway
OK, I lied, not a giveaway . . . but a big NY-based future of work conference that’s free to join online. Charter’s Workplace Summit 2024 is on October 8. Register here and join Charter co-founders Kevin Delaney and Erin Grau and other top names on leadership and the future of work. Sessions that caught my eye include JPMorgan’s head of AI on how humans and AI can best work together.
A word from the Working It community . . .
The newsletter on the benefits of journaling about working life brought in interesting replies, including a couple of readers who questioned the ownership of such artefacts. If you are writing down who said what in meetings . . . does it belong to your employer as evidence if something goes bad 🤢? I will investigate (do send me your expert thoughts).
But my favourite email came from Trigvie Robbins-Jones, known as Trig, a director at PwC. He wrote: “I do something similar in cartoon form because work is too funny to be taken seriously”. I agree, but Trig actually draws his thoughts. And they are brilliant. He’s got a blog, or follow him on LinkedIn, where he posts professional-life-adjacent strips that will lighten your feed when it gets bloated with earnest posts from self-promoters and overcaffeinated conference attendees 😱.
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